


Fire

by sensitivebore



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 06:01:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sensitivebore/pseuds/sensitivebore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carson and Hughes, and midsummer's night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fire

"Oh, stop looking so disapproving."

He turns his head, looks at her profile there in the moonlight and her eyes are sparkling, her mouth is curved in a perfect wicked smile and he would be surprised, he thinks, he would be surprised that she is so relaxed about such — such debauchery, but no. On second thought, he's not surprised.

There is something wild in her. It has been crushed in her own palms, smoothed down, rounded until it's carefully hidden away but he sees it sometimes. Sees it in hot eyes and cutting words, sees it in the rare ringing laugh he hears upstairs.

Something wild.

This is a new tradition, this bonfire and drinking and eating outside under the night sky, a new tradition Lady Mary has ushered in, said there was no reason for them to miss out on the midsummer revelry that the village and everywhere else enjoyed. It's pagan, heathen, and he's sure against everything God and King stands for.

There's little for him to do tonight because Mary also decreed that the servants should have the night off, that the food and drink should be laid under the pavilions and that should be that; there'd be no serving, no attendance, everyone could simply drift in and out and partake of the refreshments under their own whim.

He sighs. Things are changing, all the time. He's in his shirt-sleeves, all of the men are; the women are in light dresses and barefoot in the grass. Bare feet! He can scarcely look around without seeing flashes of pale ankles, lifted heels.

Thank goodness she has kept her propriety about her. She's in a simple dress, as well, yes — a soft blue frock with light touches of embroidery, but at least —

Carson looks down, sucks in a breath.

Her feet are naked. Her own stockings and slippers have gone the way of the others and he jerks his gaze away, feels his cheeks burn. He swallows and looks down again, can't help himself, can't stop from looking at the unblemished ivory of her instep, the soft curl of small toes, the lovely high arch.

There is something free under all of those black gowns, under those metal keys.

"Mrs. Hughes, you —"

She looks at him, arches her brows in amusement. They know each other well enough that she must know how uncomfortable he is, she must know how out of place he is among all of this — merrymaking. All of this — carefree frolicking. But he doesn't know what he meant to say, he's just looking at her, looking at the unusually pink cheeks, the softly shining eyes, the rich heavy twist of hair. Thankfully, Lady Mary saves him.

"Mrs. Hughes!" The housekeeper turns to her, folds her hands at her waist.

"Milady?"

"Is this how things were in Scotland? Did your village have a summer revel?" Carson listens to the reply intently; she rarely talks of her girlhood in that far north country, and he would like to know. He would like to know so many things.

"It is, milady, yes. Very close to the same teines we lit and danced and sang around, yes."

Mary's eyes go wide, sparkling, and she does a little caper of excitement. "Will you show us? I don't really know any summer songs and that's what we're missing; we need music." She fastens her gaze on him and there is something laughing, unreadable in those dark eyes. "Wouldn't you say so, Carson?"

His lips press together in a line and he smiles at her, a long-suffering smile of a father who most markedly does not agree but knows also that it will do no good to say so.

"If you say so, milady."

Elsie is being pulled away now to the fire and he watches, his eyes darkening with something, some want, some need, as she instructs Mary when to clap, when to step, when to raise her hem and curtsy, when to turn. Mary is pulling her sisters in then, her mother, Mrs. Crawley, Anna, and they are laughing, mimicking, and they are like a small grouping of fairies, of witches, of sirens lit as they are from behind with the roaring flames, with the crackling fire that lights the darkness.

After showing them a few more times, he hears a lovely, bell-like sound and his mouth opens a bit, his fingers flex, and something warm is pouring all through his chest, his heart.

She is singing. Singing and dancing in the firelight, and she is looking at him.

After a few repetitions, the other women pick up the words and sing with her, and his Lordship and Mr. Branson and Matthew are all clapping time with the women, even the Dowager is tapping her fingers on the silver head of her cane.

She is looking at him, still, and that something wild is out tonight, that something free is in full flight. Her voice is clear and high and in that shimmering, strange accent of her country.

_Raise your hats and your glasses, too — we will dance the whole night through —_

She lifts her hem in a perfect curtsy, dips, the other women do so in unison.

_We're going back to a time we knew — under a violet moon —_

Carson watches, watches every step, every motion, watches the graceful push of toes into the grass, the flex of arch, the turn of slender ankle. Swallows hard at the flash of bare calf when the pretty hem lifts for a moment, then drops.

_Cheers to the knights and days of olde —_

She looks at him, then, looks at him and smiles tenderly before turning, before glancing over her shoulder to give him another smile.

_The beggars and the thieves living in an enchanted wood —_

To give him something wild.

He lets out a long breath as he finally understands what the beautiful naked feet and ancient dance and medieval words have been about, when he finally gets that she is doing this _for him_ , when it finally gets through that she has been looking at him and only him for the entire song.

He breaths, and watches as she dances. Watches as she sings for him there around the fire, watches as she dances for him under the violet moon.


End file.
